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The USA already has this sort of capability... so why is China having this procative ?

Or is it OK for the USA to have it but no one else ? I suppose it depends on who you consider the bad guys. I note that China has invaded fewer countries in the last 50 years than the USA has... so what is the answer to the question ?

The same reason that Iran's nuclear ambitions are deemed provocative. Apparently only the west is allowed anything nuclear or dangerous - everyone else has no right, apparently. And even then the US has a right to everything, and the right to deny whatever it wants to anyone else. "Land of the free" needs to be updated - may I suggest "Land of the free (to dick on everyone else without the burden of a conscience pissing on your parade because the US is always good and right and never does anything bad to everyone else who are just jealous and should be grateful that the US saved everyone's ass in every war ever fought at least that's what's been drilled into everyone's head since being kids)". Pretty catchy, huh?:)

How dare a nation be taken away from one group of people and be given to another simply because we feel sorry for them! Why don't we just give France to all the descendants of American slaves while we're at it? Makes just as much sense as taking Israel away from Palestinians and giving it to holocaust survivors after WWII.

see, from your tone, this reads like you're trying to make a point by use of sarcasm. i think what you're arguing is that the aggression of some of Israel's neighbors justifies Israel's invasion and occupation of some of their lands. you also seem to think that this is clearly justified, once put in a clear manner.

you're wrong.

modern Israel exists because we (the west, collectively, and Britain, specifically) carved out some land for them to sit on, taking it away from the then-current occupants. the fact

"How dare a nation annex land belonging to foreign invaders "I think you gloss over the fact that a large percentage of Israel's Jewish population hails from other places, Europe and Russia in particular. Their return Palestine started in the early 20th century when their was an organized effort, under the term Zionism, to buy land in Palestine and immigrate there with the ultimate goal of returning Palestine to being a Jewish nation.

With the end of World War II there was an "invasion" of sorts when large

Tibet was a separate country, and had been for a very long time. The Chinese invaded, killed somewhere around 90% of all wildlife (including yaks) to enforce a dependence on Chinese food supplies, and destroyed the Tibetan monastic system. Oh, and they also killed over 1/3 of the Tibetan population via direct means as well as starvation.Nowadays, Tibet is used as a toxic waste dump, and the Han Chinese population outnumbers the Tibetan population. RIP Tibet, after sustaining some of the worst atrocities of

this phrasing is interesting. the verb tense used implies a continuous, unbroken state of Tibet being part of China; this is entirely false. Tibet and China have gone through numerous different types of relationships, including some which are frequently pointed to as placing Tibet in a role subservient to China, but those are interpretations, not acknowledged states. i know of no documentation identifying Tibet as part of China, prior to their m

We never said that we'd wipe them off the map. In fact we don't want to destroy them at all. They are part of our territory. Why would we nuke part of our territory?

You can stay deluded if you'd like, but maybe you'd like to absorb a dose of reality.

Why this is modded insightful is beyond me. This is the reason why China needs such tests, because the Americans are threatening us.

I'm presuming you're Chinese because you (a) use the term "we", and (b) despite your grammatical grasp of English being far better than most Slashdotters, you still failed to grasp the contextual meaning completely.

"wipe them off the map" was in this case analogous to "attack and defeat soundly" rather than "destroy completely". And as for other responses, I agree that the US has in fact attacked/invaded many more countries than China in recent years (Ie,. it is WORSE). That does not absolve China in any w

What does "legitimate use of WMD's even mean?"A bunch of powerful nations, pass around some money and rights to the spoils, and then they "Agree" that killing people is OK now? What is the difference between White Phospherous, Napalm or Serin Gas? Cost and Efficiency.

Our Cluster Bombs, Depleted Uranium and Smart Bombs kill lots of people -- apparently the piles of dead all had a trial and jury to prove that they were terrorists, rather than just bystanders. These are legitimate weapons, because they cost th

I note that China has invaded fewer countries in the last 50 years than the USA has... so what is the answer to the question ?

I see you're from the UK. It figures. In the last 50 years, the US has invadedGrenada - don't see anyone but Cuba and some Grenadian commies sorry about that oneKuwait and Iraq in Gulf War I - nobody sorry about that one either except some now dead or imprisoned Iraqi government officialsIraq in Gulf War II - well, nobody seems happy with that, so I understand complaints here.So

Yes Gulf War II was a big disaster. However, if the situation ever stabilizes the Iraqis will have a chance to guide their own lives. China's policy in Tibet is to weaken the local populice by flooding the area with Han Chinese immigrants. I suspect that most Tibetans would like to control their own future if possible but at this point they'd be glad to just not watch as their culture is destroyed in front of their eyes. I don't see that kind of cultural assassination going on in Iraq.

Sorry.. I normally try to refrain from commenting on these kind of issues, since I'm European, and will be considered someone not knowledgable enough by a lot of people. But... I can't resist this time.

The US is actually doing *exactly* that in Iraq: Do things our "democratic" way or we'll stay here and keep killing people. You'd see this if you'd actually look at things happening from a distance. The current not-yet-civil war is a direct result of the US removing the one authority figure in charge, and trying to democratize the country. I personally believe that Iraq isn't A> ready B> helped with democracy.

You can't force two peoples (in this case mainly divided along religious borders) to work together if they don't want to, and haven't in known history. This is simply an enormous mistake in thinking.

Democracy is what works for *us* (most of the time anyway), but forcing that on other people and countries should not be the way to propagate it, I think.

When that actual war was fought, Bosnia didn't actually even exist yet. The reason it 'works' now is because that country was split up in several parts (Servia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Montenegro, and it feels like I'm forgetting one)

These splits have been mostly made between ethnical group lines, and they're now moderately peacefully living together, although it's not exactly all 'pacified' yet.

Sorry.. I normally try to refrain from commenting on these kind of issues, since I'm European, and will be considered someone not knowledgable enough by a lot of people. But... I can't resist this time.

As an American who put in over a year overseas, I know our foreign policy reputation at this time. It's not kind. I have been recognized on the streets as an American and confronted on my political beliefs. I'd like to think I gave the "right answer", but I honestly don't know what would have happened a few times if I had expressed support for my president. Let me just let you know, there are many of us (maybe less than 50%, but more than 10%) who believe the French were right in holding off invasion plans and who believe the United Nations was founded in order to prevent another World War II. A seemingly unending bureaucracy it may be, but it's checked by the majority of countries with a last sanity check of the consensus of a diverse group with the most vested interest in a stable world.

We're fighting to change the political future of our country. It's slow, and it's built upon a mountain of vested interests in large corporations and minimization of energy insecurity.

OK, Kuwait was not really invaded - the government of Kuwait (in exile at that date) requested help from United Nations (and possibly USA). The UN mandated the liberation of Kuwait, and for the moment the only US troops that might be in Kuwait are observers. Don't know about Grenada, Vietnam is free of american troops, South Korea WANTS american troops inside.
Cuba has a small US garrison inside, in what seem to be not US soil, but more US army and CIA soil.
Some people in Iraq are happ

No, the USA HADthis [vought.com] capability in the past but once the cold war threat was over, dismantled it. While we have other systems such as the experimental 747 borne laser [fas.org] that probably has some asat capability, we no longer have any operational ASAT weapons.
It's provocative because even though a Chinese sat was targeted, by blowing the sat up into little pieces in uncharted and unpredictable orbits, the test created orbital hasards for everyone else.

Or is it OK for the USA to have it but no one else ? I suppose it depends on who you consider the bad guys. I note that China has invaded fewer countries in the last 50 years than the USA has... so what is the answer to the question ?

So is your argument that you desire China to have the military strength to counter the US? Or that perhaps you would prefer that China and the US switched places in relative military strength? I think that some people around here have gone so far as actually to desire that

Space treaties were based on the Antarctic treaty. Basically, no one can claim anything in space as their own terroitory, establish a military base, or anything like that. You absolutely cannot destroy another country's satellite, doing so would be an act of war. It is not the same as a spy plane because it isn't airspace. You can own airspace, you cannot own space (per the treaty, Peaceful Uses for Outer Space).

Are you seriously saying that the only problem you see with testing Nuclear Weapons is that someone once signed a paper saying they wouldn't? Really??The true problem is the same in both cases, paper or no. I'll spell it out for you:

Extremely dangerous weapon.

Yes, the nuke seems to be a much worse weapon because it destroys ground for tens of miles out, for tens of years or more... The laser, by itself, only destroys non-ground targets. If combined with other weapons, when other countries don't have las

The problem is two fold. Initially, it the debris now clogging up the orbit. This will cause damage to other satellites, possibly knocking them out completely (debris is a huge problem in space).Secondly, it opens up an arms race in space, with money thrown into space weapons research, testing, and bigger and heavier weaponry.I do disagree with some of the conclusions drawn in the article (the author was berating a Short sighted Chinese government for development of space weaponry). The US has quite acti

Secondly, it opens up an arms race in space, with money thrown into space weapons research, testing, and bigger and heavier weaponry.

Why do people keep thinking this is new? It's not. The only new thing is that it's China doing it.

The USA successfully tested an anti-satellite missile [astronautix.com] over twenty years ago. And when I mean "successfully tested," I mean we did just what the Chinese did here: destroyed an actual satellite in actual orbit around the actual earth. And it wasn't something like NMD, where we h

Because the US depends heavily on satalites for things like GPS and if China decides to start popping holes in Satalites nothing short of a full scale invasion (Read : USA can't win this in their wildest dreams, least of all after pissing off the Arabic areas of this planet) will stop them.

Well yeah. The issue is that if things did get to a point where the Chinese were knocking out US satellites at will then the US has nothing short of a Nuclear strike to counter with. And if the US was to knock out the whole Chinese army there probably wouldn't be much left of the world as we know it in a decades time so everybody loses (think Nuclear Winter). US can fight hedge wars in stone age countries where casualties in the few thousands are barely acceptable. How would the annhilation of mankind play

That is a mere triviality of a reason. Just look at recent history regarding the US's foreign policy in action. Iraq hadn't done anything directly to the US, yet they were ripe for invasion. Not doing anything to the US doesn't guarantee a country's freedom from being fucked with by the US. China, just by demonstrating it could take out a US spy satellite - note they don't even have to do it - makes them a massive risk to the US, which means they're "fair game" for a more bitchy one-sided, unfair foreig

i find the reaction among american media sources stunning, Its as tho the chinese premier had taken a shit in the white house garden. American military spending approaches 500 billion dollars a year. Chinese military spending verges on 90 billion. While it was irresponsible for the chinese to have endangered orbital vehicles, it is nowhere near the chest beating call to war that some of the linked articles have made it out to be.

As Northrop Grumman has just opened a factory [informationweek.com] for high energy laser weapons in Redondo Beach, California. Admittedly they're aiming to shoot down ballistic missles and systems to protect buildings and areas.

There's no such thing as a perfect mirror, so a big enough laser would still burn through it. Also, there are other ways to take out satellites besides lasers. But even if lasers were your concern, and you had a perfect mirror, how would you implement it and still have a useful satellite? The mirror would need to protect the satellite from every angle reachable from earth, and once you do that, then how does the satellite point any spy equipment or whatever at the earth through that mirror shield? How would

> Although this idiotic move by the Chinese government will demonstrate why we don't want hit-to-kill ASAT testing in orbit--that will be a long-term recognition. In the short-term, the Chinese will simply not be credible partners in efforts to keep space peaceful. Moreover, other countries could follow suit with their own anti-satellite programs, including the United States.

---

This statement made me smile. This is a very nice piece of propaganda. Who talks about peaceful space in the time when every oth

The article says nothing about a laser. I have no idea why the heading on this slashdot story has the word laser in it. The article clearly states it's a kinetic energy weapon (ie it's like a big bullet, cannonball, etc).

I know this is Slashdot, but did anyone read the article? There is no mention that this is a laser based system at all. To quote, "destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile." That's not a laser, that's a high speed rocket launced from a larger missile. This isn't some laser based ground weapon, it sounds quite similar to the system that the U.S. has that is almost deployed for attempting to knock down ICBM's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ballistic_missil e [wikipedia.org] , just applied to taking out a satellite instead of an incomming missile.

"Neither the Office of the U. S. Secretary of Defense nor Air Force Space Command would comment on the attack, which followed by several months the alleged illumination of a U. S. military spacecraft by a Chinese ground based laser."

So the only laser involved here is one that is capable of illuminating, target painting, targets - not destroying them. The title is more than a little misleading - can we get an adjustment on it perhaps? Something like "Chinese successfully test anti-satellite weapon"?

Considering that they shot down one of their own satellites, perhaps the US could shoot down one of their own satellites. From a European perspective this would be the funniest escalation of hostilities since Freedom Fries.

US Admiral: "Look at this, slitted eye! The Nimiz! The most phatt3st aircraft carrier ever build! Look what i can do!"*push button*... *buzzz!*His colleague from the airforce: "You yellow little man think you can disarm ICBMs better than we can? I'll prove you that we disarm our complete arsenal in half the time your tech peons will find their screwdrivers, commi!"

America first, dude! A dictator in the whitehouse, military running amok all over the middle east (watch this space), global warming contributions, funamentalist influence. Don't act like the US is some beacon of how a country should be run. To the rest of the west it's quite the opposite. I apologise if this sounds like an anti-US rant, but I guess it technically is, as it's countering an anti-Chinese rant by demonstrating the hypocrisy employed by many people with regard to not acknowledging their own country's short comings, and jumping on another's.

So bringing light to the hypocrisy of a poster is trolling? Are the mods out of their minds on this one? Sure, America doesn't come out looking that good, but shit - that's no reason to mod it as trolling. How the fuck are bad things the US does supposed to get discussed on/. if any mention of them is called trolling? Mod, grow up.

hahaha! Then I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, apologise for posting something that makes you look like a dick:) Seriously, that's not cool. Hopefully your post won't be modded into oblivion, and anyone looking at your post will see your sarcastic intentions:)

Things like censorship, product safety, military issues, global warming contributions, and anything that seems enough of a problem to become a law in western countries should be forced upon the Chinese government.

Yay! Because we're set for money at the moment. Spending it on putting things in space, with possible benefits for the consumer world in about 15 years sounds like a really wise use of time and money. It's not like people are dying everywhere, or millions going without health cover, or schools being run into the ground, etc. Yay space! So worthy! The answer to all our prayers!

Here's where it gets interesting. Anticipating just such an offensive capability from china, many military satelites are hardened against laser and EMP damage.

But, what about sharks with frickn' laser beams?

Seriously, though. War time is hell, and if another all out world war (a real war where Congress actually declares war) breaks out our "regard for the environment" would be the last thing on our minds. We would blow the enemies satellites out of the sky just as our enemies would. It would be a ra

Technically US owes to China about 0.6T (trillion) USD and counting. If China simply stops to buy those Treasuries US citizens will discover that their lifestyle is significantly less affordable. 30% of the US economy today is financial services. Above 60% of the US economy is "services". About zero of what they call "old industry". About 30% of the cars are not produced in the US. And so on. The list is infinite. War is not an option for the US. Neither is embargo. China is free to do whatever it likes. A

This is just silly talk. There will be no economic embargo on China because it developed a new weapon. No one is talking about economic sanctions other then crazy Slashdot posters.

It is a provocation in the same way any new weapon is a provocation, but the response won't be military or economic. The response will be that the US starts upgrading their own anti-satellite weapon if they have not already done so and building in more stealth features to their old satellites. This starts a potential arms race, but that is it. Even then, I doubt it is going to be much of a race. The US has had known anti-satellite weapons for decades. It probably has other still classified anti-satellite weapons waiting in the wings as well.

The real 'provocation' in this is what it means for Taiwan. The US has been quietly backing away from its promise to defend the democracy of Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion. Even now, the prospect of fighting over Taiwan makes the US uneasy. The US could certainly win today, but it would be far more bloody and dramatically more costly then Iraq. Such a war would have both nations getting itchy nuclear weapon trigger fingers. Now, to top it all off, China has the capacity to knock down US satellites making the military game much more dangerous while at the same time offering up a way to put a real hurt on American economic interests.

It is a good old fashion Mexican standoff. A war between the US and China is a war that both sides could lose (read that as going nuclear). Even if both sides agreed to take nuclear weapons off the table, the economic damage done to the US would only be matched by the massive economic destruction wrought on China. The whole issue is messy and ugly, and it is coming to a head. China WILL make a move again Taiwan in the next 10 years.

An economic embargo of USA against China would be much less catastrophic than an economic embargo of China against USA.
Meanwhile, the World Trade Organization would probably act against this - at least with a very angry letter.
As for dirty tricks, it's fully possible to see some.

I certainly won't claim that China wouldn't have pressed ahead with its anti-sattelite weapon if the US hadn't stated space hegemony as its policy objective, but in terms of being provocative it really seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The US space policy is confrontational if nothing else.

"The United States will preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space... and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests."Translation: we reserve the right to put weapons in space, and we will deny you the right to do so. Good on China for creating an intelligent solution! Hope they patented it.

No, your translation is still wrong and still shows your bias. Use the analogy of the UK and its access to the sea.

Yeah, but y'know -- if politicians want to be incurably stupid ninnies seeking a way to let off testosterone poisoning, I would prefer the posturing and pointless spygames of a cold war pissing contest over the more traditional "wipe out the furriner populace" approach.

the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a conservative think tank whose members include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz (among other prominent republicans) places among its goals, the proposal to "control the new "international commons" of space and "cyberspace" and pave the way for the creation of a new military service -- U.S. Space Forces -- with the mission of space control." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_A merican_Century [wikipedia.org]

It just might be...During the last cold war was great for scientific advancements. Space Travel, Computing, the Internet, various materials, Nuclear Energy....Cold Warfare is great for science. not as many people are getting killed but a lot of money and resources are going towards science and engineering to be prepared for war, and ahead of the other guy.Now if we can learn about the lessons from the previous ones about things not to do. Such as using 3rd world countries a pawns (like bringing in a dict

Neither America nor China can afford a cold war. The cold war was born of a different political climate, post world war two, such a situation is unlikely to recurr. For one thing China has no Stalin. Contrary to what american politions were claiming, every soviet leader after Stalin tried to bring the cold war to and end, it was America's refusal to take part that messed each event, and it only ended when the USSR collapsed, which as it turns out was the worst way for it to possibly end, bar a war. The most

A truly free election allows any issues such as foreign policy to be corrected. That is why countries such as Venezuela and Iran are not a real issue for America (as long as free elections are allowed).

You assume that the people in such countries don't already view their foreign policy as "correct".